The morning after.
It was either late March or early April, about five, maybe six years ago. I had just been switched from the lower dose of the painkillers to the Vicodin, and I was still getting used to just how much I had to take to make my leg stop hurting. This was before I was truly addicted, in the sense, but physically I know I was, because obviously, if it hurts, and I need to take pills for it, then I need to take pills for it. It's not like I decided to fuck my liver up for the hell of it.
I had lost a patient the night before. I know, this is shaping up to be some melodramatic soap opera or something, for all you, but you don't have to sit and listen to it. I had lost a patient, and it was the first patient that I'd lost in nearly a year. Someone had made a comment that maybe I needed to get myself checked into rehab for my 'problem'.
I didn't have a fucking problem.
But I went home that night, with my Vicodin, a bottle of Jameson, and I turned up Dark Side Of The Moon to a level that was sure to please the neighbors. I remember the first glass, and the second, and the third was when I started to get a little irritated. You see, I hadn't taken the dose at lunch, or at dinner, and when your leg stil hurts like hell after drinking three glasses of fifty dollars a bottle whiskey, you realize that there is a problem.
I didn't want to admit that there was a problem.
Somewhere between the start of the fourth glass, and the end of the same glass, I was in so much pain, I took the Vicodin. But instead of taking one, like my dose said, I took the current dose, plus all the doses I'd missed. I'd been able to do it before, with the lower level painkillers, but my brain just wasn't in the right place, I guess.
I blacked out after the last drink off the fourth glass, somewhere in the midst of Brain Damage, feeling like my heart was going to explode in my chest.
The next morning, I woke up smelling like liquor, with a faint hint of vomit, on my side, on the living room couch. I guess Wilson had come by when I hadn't met him for poker night at his place, and found me fucked up as I was. Which, given the look on his face when he heard me moving, was pretty bad.
That morning sucked.
But I never overdosed on Vicodin again. Lesson learned, I suppose.
I had lost a patient the night before. I know, this is shaping up to be some melodramatic soap opera or something, for all you, but you don't have to sit and listen to it. I had lost a patient, and it was the first patient that I'd lost in nearly a year. Someone had made a comment that maybe I needed to get myself checked into rehab for my 'problem'.
I didn't have a fucking problem.
But I went home that night, with my Vicodin, a bottle of Jameson, and I turned up Dark Side Of The Moon to a level that was sure to please the neighbors. I remember the first glass, and the second, and the third was when I started to get a little irritated. You see, I hadn't taken the dose at lunch, or at dinner, and when your leg stil hurts like hell after drinking three glasses of fifty dollars a bottle whiskey, you realize that there is a problem.
I didn't want to admit that there was a problem.
Somewhere between the start of the fourth glass, and the end of the same glass, I was in so much pain, I took the Vicodin. But instead of taking one, like my dose said, I took the current dose, plus all the doses I'd missed. I'd been able to do it before, with the lower level painkillers, but my brain just wasn't in the right place, I guess.
I blacked out after the last drink off the fourth glass, somewhere in the midst of Brain Damage, feeling like my heart was going to explode in my chest.
The next morning, I woke up smelling like liquor, with a faint hint of vomit, on my side, on the living room couch. I guess Wilson had come by when I hadn't met him for poker night at his place, and found me fucked up as I was. Which, given the look on his face when he heard me moving, was pretty bad.
That morning sucked.
But I never overdosed on Vicodin again. Lesson learned, I suppose.